Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold

1.

Rain in the North isn’t the same as rain in King’s Landing. Jaime has had enough proof of it. It’s colder and harder and lasts a lot longer. He still wouldn’t trade his place for anything; he’ll stand rain and cold and snow and hail if it means that his head stays on his shoulders. If serving Sansa Stark hadn’t been where he thought he’d end up, well, there are worse people one could serve for.

At least he’s in good company.

He glances at Brienne, who has just dismounted from her horse in order to take a better look at what she has just slain.

The Other’s head isn’t attached to his body anymore, but his eyes are open and they leave no doubts about the nature of the corpse. Its hands are black. Brienne stands up but doesn’t mount on the horse again as it starts to rain; Jaime curses under his breath. Today they have killed six wights and four Others, and the last thing he needed was to get thoroughly soaked in the ice-cold rain that comes with the North.

He gets off his own horse when he realizes that Brienne isn’t thinking about leaving anytime soon. There’s dried black blood on Oathkeeper’s blade, but it’s slowly being washed away.

“We can’t bring that back to Winterfell. And we can’t bury it.” he says, knowing what she’s thinking.

“I know. It doesn’t mean I have to like this.”

“I guess it’s another thing I can blame my father for,” Jaime mutters, not adding and my sister. If only they had sent help to the Wall when asked, and if only Cersei’s attention hadn’t been focused on getting rid of Snow, maybe the Wall would have held enough not to let any of these pass. Snow and whoever’s left there are doing what they can, but Jaime has seen enough of these things around to know that they can’t let their guard down.

“As long as you don’t blame yourself. You had other problems.”

Like riding with you on the same horse with a severed hand between us, Jaime thinks but doesn’t say. He notices that Brienne is staring at him now, intent. It’s not a judging stare, though; he thinks he almost likes the look in her eyes, for some reason.

“At least I was in good company,” he provides. She flushes slightly, in spite of the freezing rain soaking her. Brienne’s hair is plastered all over her forehead and cheeks, and it doesn’t hide the scar on her cheek anymore; still, he likes how the slightly pleased look in her eyes lights up her face.

“I survived that, I’ll survive a couple bloody corpses,” he adds, moving closer. Brienne puts the sword back in place, looks back up at him again.

“Sometimes I wish I had your same optimism,” she replies, inching oh-so-slightly in his direction. Her eyes are at the same level as his; her too-wide lips have taken a light pink shade and they don’t look as cracked as usual - maybe because of the rain instead of just the cold air.

“Don’t you miss Tarth sometimes?” he asks, since he’s been wondering for a while. “I’m sure it’d have a nicer climate. And that corpses still don’t come back to life, there.”

“Sometimes I do,” she agrees, “but going back would mean losing everything I’ve fought for. And you know that.”

Right, Jaime figures. You don’t become a knight just to run back where you came from when there’s the need.

“Also, you and me are the only two people in Winterfell with enough skill to deal with these things efficiently. I wouldn’t leave you to risk becoming like them after getting my nose almost broken again just to convince you to stop being craven.”

Jaime snorts, and then her hand closes around his left wrist; he realizes only then that he’s shaking. And that in spite of the weather, her hand is still warm.

“I’m afraid the weather would kill me first. Lions aren’t made for snow.”

“I think you’re stronger than that,” she says. “Come on, let’s burn – let’s burn them and go back.”

He shudders and goes to find a few suitable stones while she looks for wood, not that with all the dead trees surrounding them it won’t be easy.

Fuck, he can’t wait to be back in Winterfell already.

2.

It’s not a good trek back.

It’s a horrid trek back – they get ambushed by another ten wights, and it starts hailing, and he thinks he’s never been this cold in his fucking life, and his left hand feels like ice as he tries to hold his own against the damned things and good thing Brienne seemingly doesn’t have that problem, and after she has cut down her eight corpse against Jaime’s two, she groans.

“Fuck,” she swears, and that says a lot concerning her state of mind, since she usually doesn’t, “I had forgotten what Sam asked.”

“What – what was that?” He hadn’t been clued in, but then again whenever he learns of any relevant information these days, it’s because she told him.

“Just,” she sighs, “he said if we could bring him a head if we met any of this kind. Because he could only study the other one.”

Right. There’s two types of undead and these ones – now that he thinks about it, they aren’t as many as the regular wights.

He sighs.

“If you cut it off I’ll bring it,” he offers, “not like I could defend you otherwise, let’s be real.”

“I don’t know,” she smiles slightly, hacking the head of the closest one and throwing it in the empty sack where they kept what food they brought and that they finished long before they even started the trek back, “you weren’t too bad in that bear pit.”

“Wish that was what I had to handle right now,” he shakes his head, and grabs the stupid head, throwing it over his shoulder. He really hopes it doesn’t bleed through and stains his fur, but then again these are corpses. They usually don’t bleed.

“Never thought I’d miss it,” she says, sheathing Oathkeeper back and tightening her furs around her shoulders.

“Guess we shouldn’t take anything for granted anymore because it could always get worse?”

“Thank you, now I really feel better.” She rolls her eyes. “Right. It’s – a couple of miles I think. We get back, I report to Snow, you bring Tarly that head and then we go down to the hot springs and don’t leave unless we get attacked again, and I don’t think that’s likely.”

It’s not – they did kill a whole lot of wights, sure, but there is no way an army is on the move. It was the purpose of the stupid trip, after all.

“Right. Fuck, I can’t wait,” he says, and follows her through the snow, wishing that he wasn’t feeling like his own fucking bones got turned into ice.

They will have to drag him away from that bath the moment he steps inside it.

3.

The water is scalding hot and he doesn’t moan the moment he lowers himself inside it just out of self-control and because he knows there are guards passing by in front of the entrance to the springs. He doesn’t have to wait for long – Brienne walks through the door not long after, looking like she’ll fall asleep the moment she sits down and she just might, all things considered.

“Long report?” He asks, and if he’s making sure she does see his naked, wet chest, well.

A man can’t be blamed for teasing just a little bit.

“Next time I’m sending you to do it.”

“They would hate it.”

“Then you would be done much sooner and I wouldn’t have to listen to people still whispering I can’t do my job just as I report.” She takes off her clothing, kicks off her boots and unceremoniously drops sitting next to him, groaning in relief the moment the water touches her skin. “Seven Hells,” she mutters, “I needed that.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Jaime grins back, a hand moving on to her thigh, squeezing. “Admittedly, it’s nicer than in Harrenhal.”

“Is it.” She’s obviously teasing him and it says something that it comes so easy to her lately. Which – is a good thing. He likes that he rubbed off on her.

Who’d have thought he’d ever think that, in Harrenhal.

“Well, I’m not half-dead, you are not purple with bruises, my hand doesn’t stink of rot and neither of us is going anywhere else. Think that’s enough reason, isn’t it?”

“I could be persuaded,” she says, wiping some dried wight blood from her neck, then letting her hands wash clean and then grasping the back of his neck. “I guess we weren’t doing this in Harrenhal.”

She moves closer, her mouth meeting his, and he kisses her back, slow, it’s not like they’re in a hurry at this point and if anyone dares interrupting them for anything short of an emergency he’s so going to have their head. Her skin is still chilly and her hair is soaked in cold melted snow – his hand cards through it, moving the slush away as she sighs in pleasure against his lips.

“Tell you what,” he whispers, “how about I get that snow off your head and then we move on to something entirely more pleasurable the moment you don’t feel like a block of ice anymore?”

“Jaime Lannister, sometimes you do have the best ideas.”

“Just sometimes?” He laughs, and then kisses her again before moving and straddling her lap, his left hand cupping enough water to at least give that poor hair of hers a rinse.

No, he really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. Not at all.

End.